Adewale Iyanda

Adewale Iyanda is a Senior Legal Officer working in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the African Union Commission with the responsibility of providing legal advisory services to the principal and other Organs of the African Union. These include advice on the harmonization and co-ordination of legal strategies and policies of Member States within the framework of the Union; promoting the harmonization of state practice and international obligations within the African Union; identifying new areas requiring conclusion of new treaties and reviewing of existing treaties; preparation of legal opinions on institutional and general legal matters as well as preparation of studies on behalf of the African Union Commission on International Law.

Mr. Iyanda previously served as the Legal Adviser to the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) and subsequently as acting Coordinator for El-Fasher, North Darfur Office with the primary responsibility of winding up all legal, administrative, and operational activities of AMIS and hand-over to the joint UN-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Subsequently, he served as a Senior Legal Expert under a European Commission financed project on Process Facility support to the African Union.

More recently, Mr. Iyanda served as the interim Executive Secretary of the African Union Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan and works on International Criminal Justice issues including facilitating the work of the AU Open Ended Ministerial Committee on the International Criminal Court and coordinating the establishment of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan.